Pobreza y Asistencia en el siglo XIX. La actualidad del pensamiento social clásico

The article we present is the result of a theoretical-conceptual reflection of a teaching team that performs in the teaching of degree in the Initial Cycle of the Faculty of Social Sciences of the University of the Republic, from the Department of Social Work. It collects the thought of three pioneering traditions in social theory: Alexis de Tocqueville’s liberalism, Friedrich Engels’s socialism, and Emile Durkheim’s reformism. The article presents a set of reflections about the validity of classical social theory to understand the social question contemporary. It focuses on the authors’ positions on poverty and aid policies in the nineteenth century. How does each author explain the “pauperism” of his time? How do you conceive the role of the State? From what conception of individual and society wield their arguments? The article closes with some reflections on the traces of these ideo-political traditions in the Uruguayan culture.